General / Off-Topic Is man made climate change real or not? Prove your belief here.

[Six6VI]

I wouldn't know, because I respect the rules. You, on the other hand, sound as if you have some experience in this matter. Struggling to see any connection between what you and your buddies have been talking about and the thread topic, btw.

Personally I object to the demand: "Prove your belief here." since science is constantly evolving, being updated and is rarely if ever settled. This title suggests something more along the lines of an inquisition.

Be-LIE-f is typically imposed courtesy of some other follower (sheep) that didn't check it's validity either.

 

[Six6VI]

sure. ill upload my id to a public forum. why not. otherwise you wouldnt believe me anyway. you probably wouldnt believe me even when i provided id so yeah. im not risking identity theft in an online forum for a video game. sorry dude but im not nearly as stupid as you.

Best not mefinx. Pointless providing evidence for those who lack the vision to appreciate it...

Spoiler

 

[Six6VI]

Here's something for the more intellectual types that can sit through (boring) PhD Physicist lectures...

Spoiler

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8iEEO2UIbA

Interesting perspective on what's 'normal'. Worth persevering with the poor audio quality.

 

[Zak Gordon]

Some scientists do not agree that AGW is a real concern, and that is fine. We are allowed to have our opinions, and if those are based on some personal science based reason then all the better (say rather than just believing something because Trump or Fox News or a religious text said it is so).

However in the subject of man made climate change the vast (as in high 90%) majority of qualified scientists have been telling us for decades now that we have a problem re AGW.

So a few dissenting voices to all that peer reviewed science is not enough to prove it wrong. That is the opposite to how science works, as you need that peer review discipline to actually prove your science is correct.

Talarin posts here and knows the science very well (better than I do for sure) and does not think AGW is as big a concern as most of the reports on the topic describe. His contribution is excellent and always interesting, many of you throwing out personal opinions (and not much else credible) could learn a thing from his contributions to these threads.

If you want to be taken seriously, and have your opinions taken seriously, you need to conduct yourself seriously and behave in as professional manner as possible. Life is just like that (and rightly so).


One of the biggest issues in this debate is around the basic understanding of what AGW is and what general historic climate change is, as they are not the same. So here is an article on a pre-industrial climate change event that took place within modern man's timescale:

'Climate change may be behind fall of ancient empire, say researchers':

Climate change may be behind fall of ancient empire, say researchers

Dramatic shift from wet to dry climate could have caused crop failure in Neo-Assyrian empire

www.theguardian.com

The Neo-Assyrian empire was a mighty superpower that dominated the near east for 300 years before its dramatic collapse. Now researchers say they have a novel theory for what was behind its rise and fall: climate change.

The empire emerged in about 912BC and grew to stretch from the Mediterranean down to Egypt and out to the Persian Gulf.

But shortly after the death of the king Ashurbanipal around 630BC, the empire began to crumble, with the grand city of Nineveh sacked in 612BC. By the end of the seventh century BC, the empire’s fall was complete.

Now scientists say the reversal in the empire’s fortunes appears to coincide with a dramatic shift in its climate from wet to dry – a potentially crucial change in an empire reliant on crops.

And there are many other examples we have hints of and reasonable scientific evidence of climate change events causing disruption to human civilization and all before the industrial revolution (so not related to man made global warming due to burning of fossil fuels). A few quick examples:

The Aztec and Mayan civilizations, while european diseases did massive damage to their populations, they also have evidence of massive droughts causing food supply collapses.

Some of the Egyptian dynasties fell due to localised climate change events (some even made it into the stories of the Bible re plagues of pestulance etc, and there is some small acheological evidence to support these claims).

In welsh pre-history there are whole legends built around the notion of a flooded under world that ties in with the archeological evidence for the event that eventually cut the UK off from main land europe. It was a flood from the Scandinavian regions after an ice melt released a huge resovior of water that rushed down towards the lower right of the UK and flooded towns in the flat lands that were there and also on the other side of the UK in wales vast plains dissapeared under water, and we see the petrified forrests and villages still there today.

So as with the article above we see even in short time spans of human history that climate change occured and had pretty severe consequences. We also see in the geological record that climate has changed vastly during the history of the earth, higher average temps to colder (snowball earth anyone!), higher CO2 etc. All these events had nothing to do with man's actions, and the science behind all them proves that these were simply natural cycles of 'nature' (with the odd helping hand from outside of the earth re asteroid/meteor impacts on occasions etc).

All the things mentioned above did happen, can be proven by science and are not AGW (man made climate change).

What AGW is and why it is different is that it has been scientifically proven (as all the above events have been also via the discipline of science) that in the post industrial period (so over the last few hundred years) our actions have been increasing the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. By 'actions' covers a huge range of subjects, but the science seems to prove our use of fossil fuels as the main driver in that increase. Also keep in mind the SPEED in which this increase has been measured, just a few hundred years.

Previous changes to CO2 we see evidence of in ice cores and other geological time scale measurements took place over hundreds of thousands if not millions of years. It is that SPEED of change in CO2 levels that has been concerning scientists as it has no precedent in the history of the earth, atleast not since biological life of any complexity arose.

The predictions of the scientists, many of them employed by the fossil fuel industry back in the early days of the research (like in the 50's and 60's when that research first started), was that 'bad things' would happen if we carried on increasing the CO2 levels as quickly as had been seen. The disruption to the cycles of weather and everything we view as 'stable' in the world around us to be able to exploit (like agriculture etc).

So you have to be very clear that AGW is very different from pre-industrial climate change. They both happen, they both can be proven by science, they both have similar attributes (in the case of CO2 levels etc) but they are both not related to one another.

The credible science tells us that AGW is being caused by our use of fossil fuels, that is just the scientific reality.

Now we can demonize the scientists, as we have seen done, but that does not change the facts. Science is not an opinion or belief, it mostly either is or is not, and the wide consensus on AGW is that it IS.

And the fossil fuel industry that has over recent decades spent so much money spinning lies and sowing confusion on the subject, they are the ones that actually started the first detialed scientific analysis of the situation, they just did not like what that told them (ie your product is dangerous and releases too much CO2 into the atmosphere, there will be dangerous consequences to these actions), so they created the 'false flag' information channels that most 'deniers' use to this day to try to counter the science, everything from 'paid for' science research (that does not stand the scrutiny of the peer review process) to whole oganisations that exist just to keep putting out fake news on the subject (in the uk that is in the form of Lord Lawsons 'Global Warming Policy Foundation' but you have many like it in the USA also, all doing the same thing for the same reason).

------------

Now this post has been too long, but it contains the important basic situation and why we all find ourselves in such threads having such conversations, so i hope you take the time to read it over once or twice

 

[Iskariot]

It looks like my grandfather who is a trucker, dressed fresh one Sunday morning before going to Mass, and playing ED a few minutes before leaving.

He also looks like his undies are too tight.

 

[WeComeInPeace]

Some scientists do not agree that AGW is a real concern, and that is fine. We are allowed to have our opinions, and if those are based on some personal science based reason then all the better (say rather than just believing something because Trump or Fox News or a religious text said it is so).

However in the subject of man made climate change the vast (as in high 90%) majority of qualified scientists have been telling us for decades now that we have a problem re AGW.

So a few dissenting voices to all that peer reviewed science is not enough to prove it wrong. That is the opposite to how science works, as you need that peer review discipline to actually prove your science is correct.

Talarin posts here and knows the science very well (better than I do for sure) and does not think AGW is as big a concern as most of the reports on the topic describe. His contribution is excellent and always interesting, many of you throwing out personal opinions (and not much else credible) could learn a thing from his contributions to these threads.

If you want to be taken seriously, and have your opinions taken seriously, you need to conduct yourself seriously and behave in as professional manner as possible. Life is just like that (and rightly so).


One of the biggest issues in this debate is around the basic understanding of what AGW is and what general historic climate change is, as they are not the same. So here is an article on a pre-industrial climate change event that took place within modern man's timescale:

'Climate change may be behind fall of ancient empire, say researchers':

Climate change may be behind fall of ancient empire, say researchers

Dramatic shift from wet to dry climate could have caused crop failure in Neo-Assyrian empire

www.theguardian.com

And there are many other examples we have hints of and reasonable scientific evidence of climate change events causing disruption to human civilization and all before the industrial revolution (so not related to man made global warming due to burning of fossil fuels). A few quick examples:

The Aztec and Mayan civilizations, while european diseases did massive damage to their populations, they also have evidence of massive droughts causing food supply collapses.

Some of the Egyptian dynasties fell due to localised climate change events (some even made it into the stories of the Bible re plagues of pestulance etc, and there is some small acheological evidence to support these claims).

In welsh pre-history there are whole legends built around the notion of a flooded under world that ties in with the archeological evidence for the event that eventually cut the UK off from main land europe. It was a flood from the Scandinavian regions after an ice melt released a huge resovior of water that rushed down towards the lower right of the UK and flooded towns in the flat lands that were there and also on the other side of the UK in wales vast plains dissapeared under water, and we see the petrified forrests and villages still there today.

So as with the article above we see even in short time spans of human history that climate change occured and had pretty severe consequences. We also see in the geological record that climate has changed vastly during the history of the earth, higher average temps to colder (snowball earth anyone!), higher CO2 etc. All these events had nothing to do with man's actions, and the science behind all them proves that these were simply natural cycles of 'nature' (with the odd helping hand from outside of the earth re asteroid/meteor impacts on occasions etc).

All the things mentioned above did happen, can be proven by science and are not AGW (man made climate change).

What AGW is and why it is different is that it has been scientifically proven (as all the above events have been also via the discipline of science) that in the post industrial period (so over the last few hundred years) our actions have been increasing the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. By 'actions' covers a huge range of subjects, but the science seems to prove our use of fossil fuels as the main driver in that increase. Also keep in mind the SPEED in which this increase has been measured, just a few hundred years.

Previous changes to CO2 we see evidence of in ice cores and other geological time scale measurements took place over hundreds of thousands if not millions of years. It is that SPEED of change in CO2 levels that has been concerning scientists as it has no precedent in the history of the earth, atleast not since biological life of any complexity arose.

The predictions of the scientists, many of them employed by the fossil fuel industry back in the early days of the research (like in the 50's and 60's when that research first started), was that 'bad things' would happen if we carried on increasing the CO2 levels as quickly as had been seen. The disruption to the cycles of weather and everything we view as 'stable' in the world around us to be able to exploit (like agriculture etc).

So you have to be very clear that AGW is very different from pre-industrial climate change. They both happen, they both can be proven by science, they both have similar attributes (in the case of CO2 levels etc) but they are both not related to one another.

The credible science tells us that AGW is being caused by our use of fossil fuels, that is just the scientific reality.

Now we can demonize the scientists, as we have seen done, but that does not change the facts. Science is not an opinion or belief, it mostly either is or is not, and the wide consensus on AGW is that it IS.

And the fossil fuel industry that has over recent decades spent so much money spinning lies and sowing confusion on the subject, they are the ones that actually started the first detialed scientific analysis of the situation, they just did not like what that told them (ie your product is dangerous and releases too much CO2 into the atmosphere, there will be dangerous consequences to these actions), so they created the 'false flag' information channels that most 'deniers' use to this day to try to counter the science, everything from 'paid for' science research (that does not stand the scrutiny of the peer review process) to whole oganisations that exist just to keep putting out fake news on the subject (in the uk that is in the form of Lord Lawsons 'Global Warming Policy Foundation' but you have many like it in the USA also, all doing the same thing for the same reason).

------------

Now this post has been too long, but it contains the important basic situation and why we all find ourselves in such threads having such conversations, so i hope you take the time to read it over once or twice

I agree with most of what you write here with a few corrections.

Science is the part of society that deals with gathering knowledge. Knowledge is normally defined as: "Justified True Belief" (JTB). Notice the word "Belief" in that sentence JTB has been proven to not completely cover what we normally would consider knowledge, by people like Gettier, but when it comes to those thought experiments, they are so "uncommon" and specific, that JTB mostly is true. That leaves the "Belief".

Breaking down JTB, we can start with the belief: According to the scientific method, first you guess an idea about how stuff works. Then you design experiments to try and disprove your idea (hypothesis), designing the experiments so that the results can't be cause by anything but the hypothesis. If the experiments shows that your hypothesis is "right", then it becomes a scientific theory. The word theory is chosen because of The Problem of Induction. That's a fancy way of saying that it has NOT been proven, that if you make any experiment you can be sure to get the same result the next time you replicate the experiment.

This could be interpreted as if science is only guessing, and that science is not sure about their theories, but that is far from true. Psychology and economics has in recent years been under pressure from the rest of the scientific community for not being able to reproduce their results, and in those cases the critique has focused on badly thought out experiments, axioms known to be false , etc. which leads some of us to claim that some of today's "sciences" are bordering being "pseudosciences".

Karl Popper was the philosopher of science that introduced the idea of pseudoscience. He pointed to people like Freud and that Freud could explain a grown ups behavior by their childhood. If a person was acting "wrong" it could both be because that person hadn't had enough TLC as a child, but likewise the wrong behavior could also be caused by a mother being too smothering. Because those two explanations were so different, Freud's hypothesis (whether right or wrong) wasn't giving us knowledge, because it wasn't falsifiable.

Einstein on the other hand, with his very "bizarre" Relativity Theory predicted that light doesn't move in a "straight line", because space is bended by mass. This was a bold claim, one that was "easily" falsifiable, and when the experiment was done, it turned out that "crazy Albert" was right. Light was bended slightly passing the Sun.

This does NOT prove that light is always bended when passing a heavy star. To prove that 100% certain, you would have to measure every photon in the Universe, something which is not practically possible. However, because Einstein's claim is falsifiable, contrary to Freud's claim, Popper argued that Einstein was true science and knowledge, and that Freud was not, and he called Freud's theories Pseudoscience.

There is no logical argument against that, and today this is pretty much the conditions under which science is working. We try to avoid pseudoscience, and we try to be humble towards The Problem of Induction. Why even bother with science if it can be logically proven, that you can never be 100% certain that your theory is true? Because science has turned out to be very efficient at gathering JTB, and that JTB has proven very handy when it comes to designing technology like the GPS. The GPS uses Einstein's claim and it works. If relativity theory isn't used in a GPS it will quickly become very non functional.

Science is a dynamic proces, and the JTB is adjusted and updated all the time. That's what scientists do for a living, but some of the "facts" of science are so well established, that it's only a very weak hypothesis that they will ever be proven wrong. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is so well established, that a common saying is that "Any scientific hypothesis that doesn't agree with the 2nd Law, can automatically be assumed wrong". That is a strong statement, but it's turned out to be as true as can be.

The 2nd Law is also the foundation of the mess we're in. It "explains" energy, entropy and exergy (usable energy).

So what happens if we run out exergy? You can ask Jared Diamond:

"He also lists twelve environmental problems facing humankind today. The first eight have historically contributed to the collapse of past societies:

Deforestation and habitat destruction
Soil problems (erosion, salinization, and soil fertility losses)
Water management problems
Overhunting
Overfishing
Effects of introduced species on native species
Overpopulation
Increased per-capita impact of people"

Diamond doesn't even have the 2nd Law in those eight points, even though it is pretty obvious if you squeeze your eyes together to try and get the overall picture.

TL/DR: You are going to experience a collapse of civilization frighteningly soon, if you don't wake up and start believing science, and to do that you either have to depend upon common sense, or start reading some philosophy of science yourself. It's a pretty complicated subject, but you cannot just push science aside, unless you want to go back to being a few million people living in cages eating what you can find on the ground.

 

[WeComeInPeace]

Good luck with confronting our self-made scientists, who already struggle with reading more than 3 lines in a row, with the basics of epistemology.
That surely will do.

But thanks for pointing me to pages like this one:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erkenntnistheorie
I love this sort of brain fodder!
apropos brain fodder:
https://brainfodder.org/
Learning never ends...

If you like the subject, here are two of my favorites:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOfU1IlSUgw


And the "crazy" student of Popper, that Popper had to agree was right, before he (Popper) died:

Paul Feyerabend - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Ian Skippy]

looks like you are paranoid or something. im the furthest away from an influencer one could be. and i am a scientist, if you like it or not. geology is my main field of study. i mostly dip into hydrogeology and sedimentary.

as paranoid as you are you better fit into the alt right wing actually.

Just as a little aside, claiming 'the water could rise 1000 meter and people in Nepal wouldn't notice' is such an infantile argument that I struggle to believe anyone who finished high school would say that in good faith. Also, dr. Ian Skippy finds the whole 'trust me I am a scientist' game rather lame. The specialization of any given scientist is rarely, if ever, relevant to an online discussion. And those skills that do translate, mostly basic logic skills, should be apparent to others without having to make a claim to some title-based authority. And to be clear: arguing that '10m is no bigly number cuz people live taller in sky than water, in Nepal even very bigly!' does not give the impression of sincere and rational thought one might expect from 'a scientist'.

 

[HeatherG]

This is a reminder to stay on topic. If you discuss and insult each other the posts will be deleted.
Thank you!

 

[WeComeInPeace]

This is a reminder to stay on topic. If you discuss and insult each other the posts will be deleted.
Thank you!

Thanks.

No matter that man made global warming is still strangely debated, global warming is not. Global warming is "only" a symptom of a generally sick planet with a fact proven non sustainable human population, assuming the current development continues. That seems to be generally accepted in these threads, even among those who (strangely) disagree in the "man made" part of it. Everyone seems scared about the future, and from what I have learned studying ecology and biophysics, there is very much a reason to be scared, since we probably talk about a time horizon of 30-50 years from now. That leaves us with two possibilities.

Either we accept our "faith", continuing like always, until we hit a steep decline of our living standards, simply because we run out of energy and other resources. Alternatively we lay aside all the political philosophy, and get out of the trenches on both sides, and start doing something. What to do? In this case, the solution is in the problem. It was science that taught us about the climate and the global temperature, and it's some of the not so pleasant solutions science proposes that are the only logical solutions we have, unless we quickly find a way to break the laws of nature.

Some people think we owe it to our kids and grandchildren, others value their own life higher. Both sides have their philosophical arguments in place, and none can be proven wrong in their believes, but that's philosophy, and we have to put that aside for now. We need to start talking across the political battleground to fix the planet. We need to do that now. We need to get out of the trenches and start acting, accepting that it won't be easy. Otherwise most humans will experience something much worse than the things that has to be done, and to billions of them, it will be the end of the road. Time to wake up, and start working together instead of against each other.

Edit:

We will not vanish without a fight! We're going to live on! We're going to survive! Today we celebrate our Independence Day!

 

[Shinji Ikari]

I wouldn't know, because I respect the rules. You, on the other hand, sound as if you have some experience in this matter. Struggling to see any connection between what you and your buddies have been talking about and the thread topic, btw.

I'm almost certain you'd have to use a different IP adress to avoid that form of detection, in any case, no I don't have duplicates I'm not stupid enough to do that.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

Personally I object to the demand: "Prove your belief here." since science is constantly evolving, being updated and is rarely if ever settled. This title suggests something more along the lines of an inquisition.

Be-LIE-f is typically imposed courtesy of some other follower (sheep) that didn't check it's validity either.

It is constantly evolving because we always learn and discover new things, it it didn't evolve it'd serve for nothing. Knowledge and beliefs set in stone on the minds of people without good evidence for them is mere dogma.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

Here's something for the more intellectual types that can sit through (boring) PhD Physicist lectures...

Spoiler

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8iEEO2UIbA

Interesting perspective on what's 'normal'. Worth persevering with the poor audio quality.

You are gonna have to do better than that I'm afraid, Zak Gordon explained why.

 

[jasonbarron]

Thanks.

No matter that man made global warming is still strangely debated, global warming is not. Global warming is "only" a symptom of a generally sick planet with a fact proven non sustainable human population, assuming the current development continues. That seems to be generally accepted in these threads, even among those who (strangely) disagree in the "man made" part of it. Everyone seems scared about the future, and from what I have learned studying ecology and biophysics, there is very much a reason to be scared, since we probably talk about a time horizon of 30-50 years from now. That leaves us with two possibilities.

Either we accept our "faith", continuing like always, until we hit a steep decline of our living standards, simply because we run out of energy and other resources. Alternatively we lay aside all the political philosophy, and get out of the trenches on both sides, and start doing something. What to do? In this case, the solution is in the problem. It was science that taught us about the climate and the global temperature, and it's some of the not so pleasant solutions science proposes that are the only logical solutions we have, unless we quickly find a way to break the laws of nature.

Some people think we owe it to our kids and grandchildren, others value their own life higher. Both sides have their philosophical arguments in place, and none can be proven wrong in their believes, but that's philosophy, and we have to put that aside for now. We need to start talking across the political battleground to fix the planet. We need to do that now. We need to get out of the trenches and start acting, accepting that it won't be easy. Otherwise most humans will experience something much worse than the things that has to be done, and to billions of them, it will be the end of the road. Time to wake up, and start working together instead of against each other.

"Some people value their own lives higher" is a misdirection. I constantly find myself at odds with the CCC, but I've yet to meet one of you that not only respects human life as much as I do, much less loves their children and looks out for their future as I do. Being woke isn't a substitute for parenting, despite what you guys so commonly espouse. I'd go so far as to say when it comes to "looking out for kids and future generations" you guys are downright ghastly in your views.

 

[jasonbarron]

I'm almost certain you'd have to use a different IP adress to avoid that form of detection, in any case, no I don't have duplicates I'm not stupid enough to do that.

Good for you. What was up with the weird, un-provoked personal attack then?

 

[Shinji Ikari]

Good for you. What was up with the weird, un-provoked personal attack then?

I was trying to persuade (former) picommander that you didn't use alts.

 

[WeComeInPeace]

"Some people value their own lives higher" is a misdirection. I constantly find myself at odds with the CCC, but I've yet to meet one of you that not only respects human life as much as I do, much less loves their children and looks out for their future as I do. Being woke isn't a substitute for parenting, despite what you guys so commonly espouse. I'd go so far as to say when it comes to "looking out for kids and future generations" you guys are downright ghastly in your views.

Ok. So let's see what we agree on then. We agree that we are somewhat doomed. We also agree that doomed is bad and that it will hurt.

We solve that by listening to science. We cannot use science, or philosophy, to figure out the practical politics. We can use science to show us where the potential problems are, and what to do about those. We can also expect our politicians to put aside their personal quarrels and their unsolved philosophical mysteries. Whether that is practically possible is a good question.

I am very close to giving in to accepting our "faith". I look around the World and see politics that doesn't work. Brexit and the impeachment hearings to name a few of the obvious. However, it's also a historically proven fact, that when things become bad enough, we, the whole population can tilt or move any "government". I haven't given up completely yet. At least in theory, if everybody wants to, we can make the future a lot less horrible.

The CCC? I appreciate your love and concern towards your own children. I sincerely wish that they will live long and prosperous lives. I hope that for my own daughter as well. I even feel bad for some of the deniers, especially the ones younger than 30. You don't write it directly, but I assume (correct if wrong), that you mean the statement from scientists saying that the global population is too large. I haven't met anyone on any side of the battleground who argues that we can solve that by killing people. Some have suggested giving privileges to people that only have one child, and some have suggested better rights and education for women globally as a solution, thereby making them better able to be a part of the descision to have a child.

I personally think the latter is a good idea. I think women, especially in the poorer parts of the World deserve better. Much better. I can't see anything wrong with that, but it will not save the planet. Instead we need to start using our brains, legs and arms, and start building a more sustainable World.

 

[Six6VI]

I agree with most of what you write here with a few corrections.

Science is the part of society that deals with gathering knowledge. Knowledge is normally defined as: "Justified True Belief" (JTB). Notice the word "Belief" in that sentence JTB has been proven to not completely cover what we normally would consider knowledge, by people like Gettier, but when it comes to those thought experiments, they are so "uncommon" and specific, that JTB mostly is true. That leaves the "Belief".

Breaking down JTB, we can start with the belief: According to the scientific method, first you guess an idea about how stuff works. Then you design experiments to try and disprove your idea (hypothesis), designing the experiments so that the results can't be cause by anything but the hypothesis. If the experiments shows that your hypothesis is "right", then it becomes a scientific theory. The word theory is chosen because of The Problem of Induction. That's a fancy way of saying that it has NOT been proven, that if you make any experiment you can be sure to get the same result the next time you replicate the experiment.

This could be interpreted as if science is only guessing, and that science is not sure about their theories, but that is far from true. Psychology and economics has in recent years been under pressure from the rest of the scientific community for not being able to reproduce their results, and in those cases the critique has focused on badly thought out experiments, axioms known to be false , etc. which leads some of us to claim that some of today's "sciences" are bordering being "pseudosciences".

Karl Popper was the philosopher of science that introduced the idea of pseudoscience. He pointed to people like Freud and that Freud could explain a grown ups behavior by their childhood. If a person was acting "wrong" it could both be because that person hadn't had enough TLC as a child, but likewise the wrong behavior could also be caused by a mother being too smothering. Because those two explanations were so different, Freud's hypothesis (whether right or wrong) wasn't giving us knowledge, because it wasn't falsifiable.

Einstein on the other hand, with his very "bizarre" Relativity Theory predicted that light doesn't move in a "straight line", because space is bended by mass. This was a bold claim, one that was "easily" falsifiable, and when the experiment was done, it turned out that "crazy Albert" was right. Light was bended slightly passing the Sun.

This does NOT prove that light is always bended when passing a heavy star. To prove that 100% certain, you would have to measure every photon in the Universe, something which is not practically possible. However, because Einstein's claim is falsifiable, contrary to Freud's claim, Popper argued that Einstein was true science and knowledge, and that Freud was not, and he called Freud's theories Pseudoscience.

There is no logical argument against that, and today this is pretty much the conditions under which science is working. We try to avoid pseudoscience, and we try to be humble towards The Problem of Induction. Why even bother with science if it can be logically proven, that you can never be 100% certain that your theory is true? Because science has turned out to be very efficient at gathering JTB, and that JTB has proven very handy when it comes to designing technology like the GPS. The GPS uses Einstein's claim and it works. If relativity theory isn't used in a GPS it will quickly become very non functional.

Science is a dynamic proces, and the JTB is adjusted and updated all the time. That's what scientists do for a living, but some of the "facts" of science are so well established, that it's only a very weak hypothesis that they will ever be proven wrong. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is so well established, that a common saying is that "Any scientific hypothesis that doesn't agree with the 2nd Law, can automatically be assumed wrong". That is a strong statement, but it's turned out to be as true as can be.

The 2nd Law is also the foundation of the mess we're in. It "explains" energy, entropy and exergy (usable energy).

So what happens if we run out exergy? You can ask Jared Diamond:

"He also lists twelve environmental problems facing humankind today. The first eight have historically contributed to the collapse of past societies:

Deforestation and habitat destruction
Soil problems (erosion, salinization, and soil fertility losses)
Water management problems
Overhunting
Overfishing
Effects of introduced species on native species
Overpopulation
Increased per-capita impact of people"

Diamond doesn't even have the 2nd Law in those eight points, even though it is pretty obvious if you squeeze your eyes together to try and get the overall picture.

TL/DR: You are going to experience a collapse of civilization frighteningly soon, if you don't wake up and start believing science, and to do that you either have to depend upon common sense, or start reading some philosophy of science yourself. It's a pretty complicated subject, but you cannot just push science aside, unless you want to go back to being a few million people living in cages eating what you can find on the ground.

Thanks for the links, you've made some good points here although I'd be more inclined to reduce the Problem of Induction to; 'We don't know what we don't [yet] know'. We're a complex and dynamic species, living on a complex and dynamic planet, in a complex and dynamic Solar system, etc, etc...

In the Conclusions section on Jared's book it describes the choices required to succeed as a species to be, the courage to practice long-term thinking, hazard mitigation before the crisis and a willingness to reconsider core values. All of which require a calm, rational approach to finding effective solutions.

While the barrage of emotive language in media is taking information warfare to unprecedented levels!

 

[ArchEmperor]

A problem with the scientific discussions of today is that it is all highly politicized.
I have found out of experience that if the current discussion is going the wrong way for the 'left', their opposition is hunted down for breach of forum rules and if any such thing, no matter how small, is found, they get blocked and thus the discussion ends.

I find this highly problematic for society.

 

[Six6VI]

It is constantly evolving because we always learn and discover new things, it it didn't evolve it'd serve for nothing. Knowledge and beliefs set in stone on the minds of people without good evidence for them is mere dogma.

Do you have any mirrors in your house?